


Marriage Material

by Jillypups



Series: Tumblr Wedding Prompts [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bath Time, Benjeera, F/M, Fluff, I cannot with these two omg, Romance, Tumblr Wedding Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Wedding Prompt #1. “I jokingly told you that the only way I’d marry you was if you did this weird outlandish thing, and you actually did it, and I’m kind of charmed.”</p><p>For Janelrenee for the YAY BENJEERA prompt, hahaha, god I've missed these two. This might not make sense for those who haven't read A Kiss, Just for Fun (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3396200/chapters/7432676) but then again I can't imagine anyone deciding to read this who hasn't already read the other one, hahaha.</p><p>Okay, so this is sort of a stretch on this one. But I feel like this is the way it would work with these two. I hope y'all like it!</p><p>
  <a href="http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/129085778818/marriage-material-tumblr-wedding-prompt-1-i">Picset!</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marriage Material

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janelrenee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janelrenee/gifts).



The _dripdripdrip_ from the faucet is cool when it lands on his big toe, just barely exposed from the hot bathwater he and Meera are soaking in. The scent of sesame oil rides the air and fills his nostrils, slicks his skin, makes the water feel like silk every time he moves, though after a long night like this one, he’s not moving much. All and all, from beginning to this lovely, drowsy, naked end, it has been a good 47 th birthday. It’s why he’s smiling and dozing here, it’s why it takes Meera two times and a well-placed pinch before Benjen hears her question.

“Ow,” he says with a smile.

“I _said,_ what did you mean earlier, when Osha made the trick shot over at The Sloop?” she says, her head a loll of damp curls against his chest.

He frowns with his eyes closed, trying to remember what she’s talking about. He’s slack from sex, loose limbs and heavy lids. He’s full from a night of oysters and martinis, tired from playing pool and drinking cheap beer, from laughing during cab rides and making love with half his clothes on. It’s 1am, and with Meera lounging between his legs and against his chest, her back soaped up and slippery every time she moves to wash him, it’s almost impossible to remember anything.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he murmurs, lifting his hand from the lip of the tub to drape his arm over her shoulder.

Just the barest graze of his fingers against her breast makes her sigh, makes him smile. She is so easy to touch, so delightful to torment, even after two years of living together. _Even easier now,_ he thinks when he flattens his palm against her heat softened skin, when she arches her back into the touch, because he knows this lovely creature now, has mapped out every devastating inch of her. Benjen knows every toe curl, every arch of spine and flex of muscle, every high pitched gasp that his name rides like waves. It makes him feel wise even though it also makes him feel old, sometimes. She moans and it sounds like she’s caught life between her teeth; he does the same and it sounds like he’s grasping for a fruit he has no rights to these days. _Not that I won’t keep reaching for it,_ he thinks with the squeeze of his hand, and there she is, ripe and writhe, simper and sigh, all the sweet, sweet things he’s come to know.

“You um, oh. You said, you know. You said a woman who plays pool is marriage material,” Meera whispers. _No,_ he thinks, because whisper is a dry word, and since the day he met her she’s been nothing but slither and sinew, nothing but butter on the edge of a knife, nothing but icing on a cookie he’s lucky enough to lick.

Meera does not whisper. Meera pours.

“I’m sorry, what?” he murmurs against her shoulder, mouth against the slick of her skin.

“Would you- I mean, for _chrissakes_ Benny, pay attention. You, Birthday Boy, are as randy as a teenager on prom night.”

He laughs.

“Trust me, I’m done for the night, so you’re safe. Forgive an old man for reveling. So, what was it that I did wrong, again? Something about pool,” he says hastily when Meera reaches beneath the water to grab him. “So what, you hate pool.”

“No, I do not _hate_ pool,” she says hotly, and despite the grip she’s got on him, Benjen laughs again.

“Okay, sure,” he says, scooting down lower into the water, his knees rising higher as his shoulders dip. She rides his body with the movement, reclining as she is against him, and now he has the lovely rise of Meera’s breasts to gaze upon. Soft islands of milk and cream, crested with the pink of berries he so loves to feast on. _Maybe I’m_ not _done for the night,_ he thinks as he spreads his knees to make her sink further down onto him.

“Okay, _fine_ , it’s not my favorite. I just don’t get it,” she says after a moment, after a rather unkind tease of her hands going down-down-down that makes his eyes roll back in his head before he closes them.

But then he hears the lip-chew worry in her voice. It’s the same way her voice sounds when she’s talking to Jojen and doesn’t believe he’s taking care of himself, the same voice she uses whenever her far-flung father emails and Benjen has a few minutes of preparation before she bursts into tears. He frowns again.

“Meera,” he says, stretching apart that vowel in her name like saltwater taffy. “What did I say, again?”

“When Osha was trying out a trick shot, you told her to be careful, because a woman who can play pool like that will make a man want to marry her. You said it made her marriage material,” Meera says, and Benjen goes _Ah_ with a smile.

“I said that to try and mess up her game. I don’t know if you noticed but the second I said it Mance spit his beer all over himself. And then Osha sank the eight ball. I mean, to be honest, I was using Meera tactics, and I figured you’d be proud, not upset.”

She is still and soft in his arms, on his body, between his knees.

“Oh. Well,” she says. “I guess I just, I don’t know. I’m no good at that stupid game. I guess I had too much beer or something, because it felt like you- I mean, I thought you were- oh my god,” she says, her hands a relinquish and upward drift, and he feels like a sailor set free from a siren when she lets go of him so she can bury her face in her hands. Now his head clears.              

“What, you thought I was trying to say that you’re not marriage material?” The slow syrupy texture of the late hour thins out some as he opens his eyes, craning his neck to look down at the side of her face. He wants to laugh because it’s ridiculous, but he did not make it all the way to 47 by laughing at women when they are upset.

“I don’t know what I thought. It’s stupid, I know,” she murmurs, turning away from his gaze to look across the candle flickered bathroom.

“It’s not stupid at all,” he says, sliding his arms across the soft slope of her belly, the nip of her waist just below her breasts. “Of course you’re marriage material,” he says, “though I have to wonder what that means; we aren’t married, but I’m _ridiculously_ happy. Wasn’t the case when I _was_ married, that’s for sure. If anyone isn’t marriage material, it’s probably me.”

Wrong thing to say if he wants to stay slathered together like they are, because she immediately sits up, and the sides of the tub squeak against his legs when she shoves against them, the water splashes as she wriggles and squirms to turn around and face him.

“ _What_? You’ve got to be kidding me with that. You of all people are marriage material, with your, you know,” she says, pointing at him and twirling her finger in a circle. “You’re the real deal, the complete package,” she says with a smile that warms his heart even though it sort of makes him sad.

“I’m also closing in on 50, Meerkat,” he says light as he can, because as great a day as it’s been, it’s something that’s been on his mind since earlier that morning when he pulled a muscle getting out of bed.

She rolls her eyes.

“So what, I’m closing in on 30,” she says, scowling when he rolls his eyes and laughs. “Your age doesn’t detract from that complete package, Benjen. It adds to it, because it’s what makes you _you_. Who’s to say I’d like you if you were younger, if you didn’t have that sexy older guy thing going on, with your sunset bourbons on the front porch and your reading glasses sliding halfway down your nose,” and now he’s laughing so hard she shoves a handful of water at him, though she’s giggling like a school girl now.

“You make me sound like a grandpa,” he says with a shake of his head.

“A _sexy_ grandpa,” she corrects. “100% marriage material,” she says with a shriek before he hauls himself up into a sitting position and drags her through the water back to his side of the tub.

He’s bone tired when they finally drain the bath and dry off, but despite the luxurious comfort of a sleeping cat by his feet and familiar sheets and the sizzle static sound of drizzle on the bedroom window, Benjen can’t quite drift off. When she goes through her settling-in stage of the night, rubbing her feet together and turning to and fro before finally setting on her side facing him, he reaches out and pushes his fingers into the hair by her temple.

“Do you want to get married? Is that why that upset you so much earlier, what I said to Osha?”

He has only ever thought of it in the briefest of moments, fleeting things that pass by quicker than lightning. They happen upon him when she sits on the counter and sips wine as he cooks, when she makes coffee for him every morning, when he’s smiling to the sound of her voice as she reads to him out on the porch swing. But what he said earlier is true, that he’s so happy it almost hurts, and so those thoughts dissipate before they are even fully formed; he prefers it that way, because if he had to pick them up and examine them, let them truly unfold, there would be hard truths for him to examine. _She deserves someone better than me,_ he thinks as he rubs his thumb and forefinger against a soft curl of her hair. _She deserves someone who can give her a full life, and not just the back half of one._

Meera hums, runs the touch of her fingertips down his forearm until she reaches out for him, her arm a snake across his ribs as she scoots so close to him their foreheads nearly touch.

“I’m _so_ happy, and I never really considered myself a marriage person, honestly. But then, when you said it to Osha, it just made me think about it, that’s all. And sometimes I feel like we already _are_ married, you know?”

“I do,” he says. “But in my limited experience what we have is better. If only because we _are_ so happy. But marriage is, you know, that’s a huge commitment, and the age difference is something to consider,” he murmurs. “I’d almost feel guilty, like I’d be keeping something from you, making you tether yourself to someone so much older than you.”

“That right there, my friend, is probably the stupidest thing you have _ever_ said,” she says. “I don’t want anyone else but you and I won’t settle for anyone else. I’d rather be with you for however long we have than having twice as long with some nobody. What we have is perfect, Benny. What we _are_ is perfect. Don’t you- don’t you dare say something so stupid,” she says, and she says it so fiercely it makes him smile in the near pitch darkness.

“Are you saying you want to marry me, Meera?” he murmurs, finding her mouth with his to kiss her.

“No. I mean, _yes_ , but, oh,” she says with a sigh and a little back-in-the-throat grunt of frustration. “No, you know what? I’m saying we _are_ married. As of right now, you’re Mr. Meera and I’m Mrs. Benjen, all right? So you can shove those idiotic ideas about being too old right out the window, all right?”

“Yes, dear,” he grins, because that spark and flicker right there is one of the many reasons why he is so in love with her. Benjen rolls onto his back and she comes without question or the invitation he was about to offer, and she rests her head on his chest like she so often does when they’re in bed together.

“Now, if you don’t mind, it’s very late and I have to work tomorrow. So, goodnight, Mr. Meera,” she says, and as authoritative as she sounds, he can hear the girlish grin in her voice. It’s the sound of happiness. It’s the sound, he realizes, of the rest of his lucky, lucky life.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Benjen,” he smiles.

 

 

 


End file.
